Swarm

-20-

When I learned the method by which Pierre had been conducting diplomacy, I almost laughed aloud. He had been doing it via the internet, using a voice system that allowed two-way communication. I knew the software well, my students had used it to communicate with other people worldwide—mostly for online gaming purposes.

It did have advantages, I had to admit. By using a cellular internet hook-up and software for voice transmission, you didn’t have to call people and know their phone numbers. It was a little harder to trace, as well. But mostly I thought it was amusing because I was sure it was the same type of system that Pierre had previously used to con people out of money. E-mails to get them hooked, then a faceless, untraceable, cost-free voice coming over the internet to talk them into the scam. He’d naturally taken the same approach when dealing with foreign governments. I had to wonder if he’d done something else he shouldn’t—something that had pissed off the wrong people and gotten him killed.

I sat and thought for a while with Pierre’s tiny computer in my hands. Before I tried to talk to the government people—the same people, I reminded myself, that had killed our last ambassador—I felt I needed an edge of some kind. I need a bargaining chip. It would be one thing to get online and make them squirm, calling them assassins and fascists and the like. But I was a big boy. I knew the score. They might be embarrassed, but when the survival of the world was at stake, they were playing for keeps. Fortunately, so was I.

I waited until Sandra left me. She had gone exploring the ship. She did that a lot, as it was one of the few things the Alamo would let her do. I had done a bit of it, but not as much as she had over the past week. Inside, the ship had several levels and dozens of rooms of various sizes on each deck. There was a lot of strange equipment on the upper decks, the purposes of which were still a mystery to us.

“Alamo, I want to talk to you.”

The ship didn’t respond. There was no need. I could have opted to transmit my thoughts silently, but that still didn’t feel natural to me.

“Alamo, what if this ship is damaged? Can it repair itself?”

“Yes.”

“Can it repair the macro systems aboard the ship?”

“Yes.”

“All of the big components? Even the drive systems and the weaponry?”

“Yes.”

I made a happy sound and leaned back in my chair. This was what I had been hoping for. If the ship could repair a laser weapon, could it not build a brand new one, given the materials? If it could make an engine, why couldn’t it build more engines? Even more importantly, what component aboard the ship had the job of constructing engines or lasers? What if that repair unit could make a copy of itself?

“Alamo, do you have some kind of repair chamber?”

“There is a repair unit for macro equipment.”

“If it was damaged, could it repair itself?”

“Yes.”

“Could it duplicate itself?”

A hesitation. “Possibly.”

“Why not definitely?”

“Some of the raw materials are exceedingly rare.”

I nodded, thinking hard. “Alamo, lead me to this repair unit.”

A door opened in the bridge wall. I couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t think that particular spot had ever opened before. I walked through, and had to duck to get inside. The ceiling here was lower. The room was oddly-shaped as well, resembling a pyramid laid on its side.

I walked in, sliding around on the converging metal walls. It was like being on a slanted steel roof. This turned out not to be the repair chamber itself. Instead, the ship led me through a series of strangely-curved rooms. I went up a level, then another. I thought that I was probably up high inside the ship, up close to the top laser turret. Over the preceding week, we’d gotten a better idea of the ship’s design and structure due to the many carefully considered studies the humans were making. Little else was on TV or the internet these days. It was all documentaries and news articles about Nanos and Macros, all day long. We’d learned that there were two primary weapons systems on these ships, which were all identical in design. The lasers were mounted on the top and on the bottom of the ships, and each mount could swivel around with a wide field of fire.

I finally came to a spot with tubes that led down from the prow of the ship. The tubes led to a central spheroid of dull, non-reflective metal. The spheroid was about ten feet in diameter. The Alamo indicated this was the machine. It didn’t look like much.

“What’s inside these tubes?”

“Nothing.”

I sighed. “What is inside these tubes when the machine is operating?”

“Raw materials.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. “So the tubes open on the outside of the ship?”

“When it is in use, yes.”

“And the big arm feeds it the appropriate materials?”

“Yes.”

I fooled with it, tapping on the tubes and crawling around the cramped space, looking for an exit point, but there was none. This was unsurprising. The Nanos made their own openings in things whenever they felt the need.

“Alamo, this is very interesting. I need you to make something for me with this machine.”

“Permission denied.”

“Alamo, I am command personnel.”

“You are command personnel,” the ship agreed.

“I need to save this planet. That is my mission. Change the permissions so I can complete my mission.”

Hesitation. “Permissions not changed.”

“I can’t change the permissions on this unit?” I asked, thinking hard like a hacker.

“You do not have the authority to change the permissions on this unit.”

“Alamo,” I said thoughtfully. “Your mission is to stop the Macros, correct?”

“Yes.”

“My mission is also to stop the Macros. Using this repair unit will allow me to complete my mission and allow you to complete your mission as well. You will change the permissions on your own authority. Change the permissions so we may both complete our missions.”

Hesitation. “Permissions changed.”

I clapped my hands together. Like every complex system, there was usually a work-around.

“I need you to construct something small for me. I need a hand-held version of the lasers that arm this ship.”

“Request insufficiently specific.”

“Okay,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. It had begun to ache from being in this cramped spot.

“Just make a miniature version of the lasers that arm this ship. Make it one tenth—no one twentieth—the scale.”

“Raw materials needed.”

“Proceed to get the raw materials. But don’t kill anyone!” I added hastily.

“Program executing.”

“Estimated time of completion?”

“Unknown.”

“What part of the process is the greatest variable?”

“Locating and securing raw materials of the correct size and shape.”

“Okay... if you had the raw materials right now, how long would it take to produce the weapon?”

“Approximately six minutes. Warning: the preceding was a coerced estimate, and may or not be accurate.”

“There, there, Alamo,” I said, patting one of the walls as if soothing an excited pet. “I know how much you hate giving estimates. You are doing fine.”

I climbed back through the ship to the bridge. I left instructions for the ship to deliver the weapon system to me when it was finished manufacturing it.

When I got back to the bridge, Sandra grilled me. I explained what I had been up to. She told me she’d never seen that machine.

“I don’t think the Alamo really wants us to see it. I only figured out its existence by deduction. In centuries past, when ships traveled across the oceans, they had to take everything with them to rebuild the ship from scratch if necessary.”

“Why?”

“Often, the ship would be damaged. It would leave the crew stranded on some island or a beach along the jungle-covered mainland. There was no one to help, no one to come rescue them. Back then, there wasn’t even any good communication technology like a radio to call for help. The crew had to be able to repair anything and everything, or they could die.”

“So you figured this ship must have the same capacity?”

“I thought it was likely to, yes. If they can rebuild our bodies, rebuilding an engine shouldn’t be too hard.”

She nodded slowly. “What can we do with it?”

“If I’m right, then it will be answer to everything,” I told her.

It was the next morning before the ship finally reached through the walls to hand us the item it had labored over. I stopped eating a bowl of cereal—still my breakfast of choice despite having a world of foodstuffs to choose from. I looked over the object the ship had delivered. It had taken longer than I had expected, but I was impressed with the final result. It looked like a fancy pen, but was the size of a watchman’s flashlight. It had a crystalline tip that I suspected wasn’t full of ink.

I couldn’t find any way to fire it, however. It had no trigger.

“Alamo, how do you shoot this thing?”

“Question too vague to generate a response.”

“I mean, I wish to fire this device. Give me instructions to do so.”

“Connect the device to a power supply. Direct the tip toward the target. Turn on the power supply.”

I nodded, suddenly understanding. I’d asked the ship to make me a miniature version of its own guns. There were no triggers or battery packs on its own lasers. They were attached to the ship itself and they fired when energy was switched on. I might as well hold a light bulb in my hand and ask why it wasn’t shining.

Still, I thought that for my purposes it would do the trick. It was my bargaining chip. I held it in my lap and decided it was time to contact Senator Kim Bager.

Using Pierre’s tiny portable computer, I logged in and connected to a server. Someone down there on Earth must have had the joyous job of monitoring the server around the clock. I was immediately hailed. I hesitated, then joined a private chat room to talk to them. I was glad Pierre had set his system to remember all his passwords. I had no idea what they were, and I didn’t have to figure them out.

“Hello?” I said.

“Pierre?” said a voice.

I nodded to myself. Could it be that they didn’t even know he was dead? Or were they going to play dumb?

“You know this isn’t Pierre,” I said.

“Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Commander Riggs.”

“You are a commander of the alien ships?”

“Of Star Force, yes. Connect me to Senator Kim Bager, please.”

That threw him for a second. “I’ll connect you to my superiors, sir.”

It took a few more intermediaries and about a half-hour of fooling around, but I eventually got through to the Senator. My first direct communications with Bager were awkward, to say the least. I decided not to go easy on her.

“Senator,” I said sternly, “I’m sorry that Ambassador Pierre Gaspard is not able to continue meeting with you.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear—”

“He was killed, unfortunately, by your government’s assassins. I’m sure you have been briefed, as you arranged the meeting yourself.”

“Ah—what? He’s been killed?”

“Indeed madam. Your assassin was successful. I was forced to personally deal with her myself.”

“Her?”

“The assassin, madam,” I said.

I glanced over at Sandra, who seemed to be enjoying the Senator’s obvious discomfort.

“First of all, Commander Riggs, let me assure you that I knew nothing of this—”

“Of course not, madam Senator,” I snapped in a tone that indicated I didn’t believe her.

Her voice changed, and I sensed great tension in it. She spoke deliberately, however. “You have to understand, Commander, our government has been put under a tremendous strain. Not everyone is on the same page. We can’t protect our citizens. Your ships kill thousands every day.”

For the first moment, I hesitated. I had been about to grill her further, to accuse her of doing everything but pull the trigger herself. But her words stopped me. They weren’t our ships doing the killing, but from their point of view, it would look that way. All of our ships looked the same to them. How did they know which ones we were in control of and which ones were still unmanned? Some of us stole things, probably people as well. Half the ships roamed the Earth testing and discarding people like chaff. There was plenty of death and hatred to go around for everyone.

“The ships who are still testing people are not under our control. They are not our ships. We are not the aliens, we are just citizens of the world who’ve been caught up in all this. Just like everyone else.”

“Not quite like everyone else. Can you understand how people down here might be frustrated? How—certain factions might arise and get ideas?”

“All right, Senator Bager,” I said. “I suppose it is plausible that Esmeralda was just a lone gunman. A fighter, I believe the new colloquial term is.”

“Esmeralda?” she asked.

“The assassin’s name, Senator.”

“You know her name?”

“Yes, she spoke to me in her final moments.”

A span of silence followed. The Senator had to push a button to transmit, and she wasn’t pushing it now. I wondered what kind of frenzy was going on at the other end. I was certain that the Senator was not alone. She probably had a number of people circling her, taking notes, offering suggestions. The fact that I had spoken with their assassin, learned her true name, and killed her personally must not be welcome news. They would have recovered the body by now and could verify at least some of my story.

I thought about what Crow had said about achieving independence. No political group was allowed to do so unless it was strong enough to fight for its freedom. That lesson was everywhere in history, and it seemed like we were repeating it now. Beating their assassin and getting information out of her had to impress them.

“Commander Riggs,” said the Senator in a cautious voice. “We have to work together for the good of humanity. How do we start again?”

“First of all, we will agree to a cover story that will save face for both sides. I suggest we spin it in this manner: A government agent aspired to take over one of our ships independently. She heard Pierre’s ship would be an easy mark, and she took it upon herself to go rogue.”

“That is my government’s position,” said the Senator, “because it is the truth.”

“Of course it is,” I said. “We will not break off diplomatic relations, despite the extreme provocation. But you must understand that trust must be rebuilt, and our security measures will be extreme from now on. In the future, we will only take aboard well-known, elected public officials for face-to-face meetings. No assistants, bodyguards or equipment bigger than a ballpoint pen will be coming with you.”

“With me?”

“Yes. Naturally Senator, I was hoping you would volunteer. I have something I very much want to show you. A piece of alien technology that might win the ground war with the Macros.”

She hesitated. “Does it have to be me?”

“I’m not a murderer, Kim,” I said gently. “Esmeralda attacked me first.”

Another hesitation. “I’ll come aboard. I’ve read your profile six times. You don’t seem like a typical killer, Commander Riggs. I’m hoping you haven’t changed.”

We set a time. We would have lunch together. I would provide the food.